Ramblings on explosives, guns, politics, and sex by a redneck Idaho farm boy who became a software engineer living near Seattle.

Main menu

Post navigation

Quote of the day—William Booth

The Imperial College group reported that if nothing was done by governments and individuals and the pandemic remained uncontrolled, then 510,000 would die in Britain and 2.2 million in the United States over the course of the outbreak.

These kinds of numbers are deeply concerning for countries with top-drawer health-care systems. They are terrifying for less-developed countries, global health experts say.

If Britain and the United States pursued much more ambitious measures to mitigate the spread of coronavirus, to slow but not necessarily stop epidemic over the coming few months, they could reduce mortality by half, to 260,000 people in the United Kingdom and 1.1 million in the United States.

Finally, if the British government quickly went all-out to suppress viral spread — aiming to reverse epidemic growth and reduce the case load to a low level — then the number of dead in the country could drop to below 20,000. To do this, the researchers said, Britain would have to enforce social distancing for the entire population, isolate all cases, demand household quarantines of households where anyone is sick, and close all schools and universities — and do this not for weeks but for 12 to 18 months, until a vaccine is available.

This could permanently change all industrialized societies. High population densities, mass transit, and high density offices will be far less attractive to the population at large. The effect could last for a generation or more. How does this affect the political climate?

Live entertainment, restaurants, and the travel industry are going to take a tremendous hit which will ripple throughout society.

Related

18 thoughts on “Quote of the day—William Booth”

My question whenever I see these alarming numbers is: what basis is there for these numbers? Why not 10x that number, or 1/10th of that number, or 1/1000th?
In other words, are these anything more than random numbers pulled out of thin air? If yes, in what way, and what is the margin of error on them?
The problem is that this sort of reports is not really science; it doesn’t conform to the requirement of falsifiability.

A crisis is a most precious thing to an authoritarian. It gives them all manner of excuses to expand their reach and power, at a time in which the citizenry is most pliable. As they remind one another; “Never let a crisis go to waste” (Rahm Emanuel referencing Saul Alinsky).

We’ve long known how crisis mongering is used by politicians. Anything can become “The Moral Equilivalent of War” (Jimmy Carter). If they should be so lucky as to be blessed with a real crisis, they’ll be having a months-long organism of joy, relishing their newly expandable power.

When it’s over, they’ll be looking for the next crisis/opportunity.

Eventually even the most credulous audiences will converge on a single solution to The Boy That Cried Wolf; he’ll be gagged and hogtied, even if he is at times accidentally correct.

2.2 million in the US is too close to US Spanish Flu numbers adjusted for population growth for me to think they didn’t just crib from that. And this isn’t 1920 America, and we aren’t responding the same way with extra travel and no curbs of mass gatherings.

I wonder if the mathematical models they used to justify their projections suffer the same fallacies as those used on ‘Climate Change’. How do you measure the bias in the model, let alone the modeler? Especially since they don’t know the true rate of transmission. Are these numbers ‘worst case’ projections, if so, how did they arrive at them?

It doesn’t seem to be as virulent as Measles, which puts the percentage to achieve herd immunity for the uninoculated at around 95%. When I worked in Aerospace Cost Estimating, we called such numbers, “PIDOOMAs”, for “Pulled It Directly Out Of My A**”, or if we wanted to be less crude, “Vent Quotes”, as in, “lean back in your chair and stare at the vent in the ceiling until the number comes to you.”
“I vote for Number close enough to induce mass panic without being immediately obvious, Alex”

I wonder what the new currency is going to look like? After they get finished vaporizing what little true wealth people have left. And let’s pray Joe Biden isn’t the president that negotiates the new Bretton woods agreement? Interesting times indeed!

Ugg… voluntary house arrest for 12-18 months and perhaps even longer. What I worry about are civil unrest and the supply chain. Keep in mind that Newton did some of his most important work in similar circumstances.

At least we have a few acres to wander around on and we’ll have chickens and a large garden.

The models used are differential equations. In reality, they are just a way of counting in complex systems and being used as what-ifs.

We can hope that this puts a nail in the coffin of globalization, megacities that have insane living conditions, and the carefree anything goes elite. This sh** and its consequences matter. Woke policies that endanger or kill will not last long in this environment.

Except they (Nancy Pelosi in particular) are still trying to use this as an excuse for people to not think for themselves and quickly vote for whatever quickie plan they want to implement. (cf the recent bill that included funding to bypass the Hite — Hight?– amendment. )

Hyde amendment. And that gambit is often rolled out for any appropriation/budget legislation that has the potential of being ‘must pass’.
I’m a bit stunned in these days of a democrap majority in the house that it didn’t get included.

Indeed. High population density breeds progressive collectivists. If cities become less attractive and people start spreading out a lot more, society may shift more towards individualism and self-reliance.

Just doing my own rough estimate I come up with about 2 million deaths in the US. It is 2 – 3X more contagious than influenza. Estimates are 60% of the population will have it in the next year. That is about 200 million people in the US. They claim about 1% mortality rate. That comes to 2 million deaths. We can argue with the 60% number or the 1% number, but the rest is just math.

Gov Newsom of CA claims a 50-60% infection rate, on no basis that I have heard. My assumption is that he’s trying to extend the panic. If you treat that number as real then yes, the rest might follow. Maybe not, the mortality rate may be lower.
But is there ANY basis for that 60% number? Or any other large number?
If, and that’s of course a VERY big if, we put any faith in China Communist Party numbers, their infection numbers are said to be leveling off at about 81k out of a 1.38 billion population. That’s 0.006%. The same percentage applied to the USA gives 17500 infected.
Even if you assume a 10x ChiCom lies adjustment, that translates to 0.06% and 175k patients in the USA.
To get to 60% you’d have to assume the peak numbers are 10,000 times what China reports. I always assume communists lie, but I don’t think they lie by four orders of magnitude.

Lets be honest. The people in power running things couldn’t give a red rats ass
if a couple million Americans succumbed to this virus. What they DO care about is the OPTICS of those deaths. So they are doing what the brainless sheeple are bleating for them to do……which is “DO SOMETHING!!!!” Of course what they are actually doing will have very little effect on the actual disease but the reality is they DON’T CARE. They are PRETENDING to address the problem of the coronavirus while what they are actually doing is trashing freedom, rule of law and our future. A year or two from now most people are going to realize that what transpired this month was the watershed moment in the death of American freedom if we allow it to continue. This virus is dangerous….to certain members of society…..the old and the infirm. To the rest of us it is an ANNOYANCE and we are giving up our freedom so the government can PRETEND to fight the disease when what they are doing is destroying what is left of the free country that we used to have. It’s almost like they HAD A SCRIPT ready for this.

Comments are closed.

Amazon

Joe Huffman is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program
designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.